The Killer's Daughter by Vivian Oldaker
| The Killer's Daughter by Vivian Oldaker | |
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| Category: Teens | |
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Reviewer: Catherine Bakes
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| Summary: Was it Emma's Father who pushed her famous Grandmother off a cliff in Greece, or is it bigger than her family? | |
| Buy? Yes | Borrow? Yes |
| Pages: 174 | Date: October 2009 |
| Publisher: Andersen Press Ltd | |
| ISBN: 978-1842708149 | |
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Emma has just moved to Wessex with her Dad and Jan, her Dad's girlfriend. But it's not just adjusting to a new school, a new country that Emma has to deal with. Emma's Dad was accused of murdering her famous Grandmother by pushing her off a cliff in Greece. No one wants to be her friend, and it's not long before she becomes the newest victim to bullies. Slashed swimming costumes, physical fights – being at her new school is difficult.
The only person who befriends her is Bruce, the school geek who lives in the town shop. It's not long before feelings grow, and they become an item. He would do anything for her, disobeying his uncle everyday to see her – she's a killer's daughter.
Even though her father was cleared of murder, and found not guilty nobody will believe her, and her school life is increasingly getting worse. Then, Bruce hatches a plan – to go to Greece on a school trip and stay after to find out what really happened the day her Grandmother died and clear her Father's name once and for all.
This book does grab you and not let you go. The plot is interesting and absorbing. There are moments when I feel the content is a little age inappropriate, and a little confused about what age range it is aimed at. At one point in the book it came very close to losing my attention due to the main characters sexual relationship with a thirty-four year old man. However, I feel it can just be overlooked due to the good plot and well written characters. Bruce is a lovely character, and I felt sorry for him in all the right places – but then I am a sucker for nice male characters!
One thing I did pick up on was the poorly written dialogue regarding the playground conversation – being young myself, and the playground being in the not too distant past, I can safely say that kids don't talk to each other like that. The swearing too I found a problem, in one place it would simply say 'she swore' and on the other it would just go ahead and say it in the text. I felt that the author should of chosen one route – if she was going to swear in dialogue to be brave enough to just do it.
All in all I liked this book, it's a nice quick read, but also a good tale about a girl trying to find out for herself who and what her Father is, what happened to her Grandmother and finding out about herself and growing up along the way.
Further reading suggestion: If you have read this book and enjoyed it, or like books similar to this I suggest you read The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time by Mark Haddon or Bloodchild by Tim Bowler.
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